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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

BBC Prom 8: Invitation to the Dance

July 24, 2019
Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College Rd, Kensington, London SW7 2AP, UK

A drowsy and mysterious exoticism breathes in Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, the former score repurposed as a ballet, the latter commissioned by the Ballets Russes. Sharing the program with these pieces is the U.K. premiere of Peter Eötvös’s new violin concerto Alhambra, which, one assumes, evokes the eponymous palace in Granada, Spain—that otherworldly “pearl set in emeralds.” —L.J.